Aortic stenosis is an abnormal narrowing of the aortic valve in the heart resulting in decreased cardiac function, which often leads to a deteriorating quality of life for those afflicted by the condition. The most effective conventional treatment for aortic stenosis is aortic valve replacement (AVR) by open heart surgery, which involves removing the existing native aortic valve and implanting an artificial aortic valve, but only a fraction of patients with aortic stenosis are able to undergo this invasive procedure. A less invasive procedure for aortic valve replacement under development is percutaneous or transcatheter AVR (PAVR or TAVI), in which the replacement valve is delivered as part of a stent valve delivery system through a guiding catheter via the vascular system by a transfemoral or directly via a transapical approach. In percutaneous AVR, a balloon catheter expands to compress the existing native valve to the blood vessel wall prior to insertion of the replacement valve. However, this procedure introduces significant risks, including paravalvular leakage, device embolization, device failure, inadequate valve sizing, induced conduction defects requiring a permanent pacemaker, obstruction of the coronary ostia, distal emboli resulting in stroke and mitral valve injury. Such risks are often increased for certain patients who, for example, have native valves with hardened leaflet calcifications that interfere with the replacement valve stent structure.
Thus, there is a need in the cardiac surgery field to create a system and method for resecting a valve. This invention provides such an improved system and method for resecting a valve.